Automatic hot air clothes dryers are highly convenient and widely used devices in the United States and many other countries.
Such dryers do have a major drawback, namely, that they dry certain types of clothing in a wrinkled fashion. This is particularly undesirable in connection with shirts, blouses and other types of clothing, particularly the so-called "wash and wear" type. The latter, as is known, are intended to be ready for wearing upon removal from the dryer. However, in many cases such clothes are wrinkled at the end of the drying cycle, thereby requiring ironing.
There are other items dried in clothes dryers, such as sheets, which are also wrinkled in the drying process and thus must be ironed.
Thus, it is desirable to provide a method and apparatus for applying anti-wrinkling agents on clothes during the operation of the dryer. In addition, it is often desirable to apply other agents, such as anti-bacterial agents, fabric softeners, bleaches, anti-deodorants, mildew preventatives, mothproofing agents and the like during the drying process. These agents, including anti-wrinkling agents, are collectively referred to as "agents" or conditioners" for ease of reference.
In the past, a number of devices for dispensing the above agents have been designed.
One such device is that shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,267,701 wherein the dispensing device 10 is attached to the inside of the dryer door. However, while the sprayer is detachable, its construction is quite complicated--and, therefore, expensive, requires modification of the dryer and is powered by electrical leads coming from the power supply circuit of the dryer itself.
The '701 patent thus illustrates a critical drawback in the prior art: a high percentage of dryers now in homes in the United States and elsewhere do not contain agent applicators ("sprayers") and therefore cannot be readily modified to be equipped with sprayer devices such as that of the '701 patent. In turn, this presents a problem: many new and effective agents have recently been developed for use in dryers, but, as indicated, most existing dryers have no means for using them.
Hence, there is a great need for a sprayer device which can be easily attached to the inside of dryers now in use and which does not require any modification of electric wiring, etc. As will be seen, the present invention provides such a device which is self-contained, i.e., it has its own power source and is easily attachable to existing dryers.
As indicated, a number of other patents have been granted for sprayer devices, but all are designed to be built in as part of the original dryer and use the power source thereof. In addition, most of these also require the original dryers of which they are an integral part to include pumps, pipes and other electrical and mechanical modifications.
Examples of the latter--all of which are U.S. Patents--are U.S. Pat. No. 4,236,320 which discloses an external pump 8 for forcing agents in an internal container 6 through a nozzle 11 via a series of pipes. The power supply for pump 8 is not disclosed, but appears to be from the main power supply of the dryer itself. U.S. Pat. No. 4,053,992 appears to be a non-powered container for fabric softeners and the like. U.S. Pat. No. 2,846,776 shows a glass jar 21 for agents and a spray head 22 and an air pump 26 for the sprayer built into the dryer and powered by the dryer. U.S. Pat. No. 3,103,450 is another complicated device which is constructed as part of the original machine, which is a coin-operated dry cleaning machine, and requires access via a front door and an operator accessible rear door. U.S. Pat. No. 3,172,604 discloses an externally mounted sprayer, the power supply for which is not apparent. U.S. Pat. No. 3,435,537 discloses a device for dispensing solid volatile fabric treating agents which has no moving parts and wherein the rate of treatment is a function of heat and volatibility of the active ingredient. U.S. Pat. No. 3,364,585 is well-representative of a dryer with a sprayer mechanism of considerable complexity built in the machine during original manufacture thereof. Patents of even less significance are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,609,127; 3,245,737 and 4,569,462.
The foregoing review of the prior work in this field well illustrates the need for a portable (i.e., detachable) sprayer unit which has a self-contained power source and which can be easily attached to the inside of existing--as well as future--clothes dryers in order to provide means for applying agents. This is a primary purposes of the present invention.
Another important purpose of this invention is to provide such a portable device which is operable to deliver agents to the clothes in the dryer at selected times during the operation of the dryer. This is important because the timing of the application of certain agents is significant to their efficacy.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the foregoing, the following description of the preferred embodiment, from the claims and from the drawings.